The Ogallala Aquifer is a shallow water table aquifer surrounded by sand, silt, clay, and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. As one of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 sq mi (450,000 km2) in portions of eight states. It was named in 1898 by geologist N. H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. The aquifer is part of the High Plains Aquifer System, and resides in the Ogallala Formation, which is the principal geologic unit underlying 80% of the High Plains.
The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. Named after California Governor Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown Sr., the over 400-mile (640 km) aqueduct is the principal feature of the California State Water Project.
California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately 7 million acres, including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna.
The San Gabriel River is a mostly urban waterway flowing 58 miles (93 km) southward through Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California in the United States. It is the central of three major rivers draining the Greater Los Angeles Area, the others being the Los Angeles River and Santa Ana River. The river's watershed stretches from the rugged San Gabriel Mountains to the heavily developed San Gabriel Valley and a significant part of the Los Angeles coastal plain, emptying into the Pacific Ocean between the cities of Long Beach and Seal Beach.
The Edwards Aquifer is one of the most prolific artesian aquifers in the world. Located on the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas, it is the source of drinking water for two million people, and is the primary water supply for agriculture and industry in the aquifer's region. Additionally, the Edwards Aquifer feeds the Comal and San Marcos springs, provides springflow for recreational and downstream uses in the Nueces, San Antonio, Guadalupe, and San Marcos river basins, and is home to several unique and endangered species.
Overdrafting is the process of extracting groundwater beyond the equilibrium yield of an aquifer. Groundwater is one of the largest sources of fresh water and is found underground. The primary cause of groundwater depletion is the excessive pumping of groundwater up from underground aquifers.
The Turlock Basin is a sub-basin of the San Joaquin Valley groundwater basin which occupies approximately 13,700 total square miles, making it the largest groundwater basin in California. The Turlock Basin makes up 542 square miles of this total. This aquifer is located within Merced and Stanislaus counties in the Central Valley bounded by the Tuolumne River to the north, the Merced River to the south and San Joaquin River to the west. The Sierra Nevada foothills bound the sub-basin to the east. Groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley occurs mostly in younger alluvial material. The Turlock Basin lies to the east of the city of Turlock. Groundwater in the Turlock Basin occurs in older alluvial deposits. Large portions of the San Joaquin Basin have experienced overdraft of water and infiltration of agricultural water pollutants, resulting in poor water quality.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District provides stream stewardship, wholesale water supply and flood protection for Santa Clara County, California, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area. The district encompasses all of the county's 1,300 square miles (3,400 km2) and serves the area's 15 cities, 2 million residents and more than 200,000 commuters. In terms of acres, the district includes 138,000 acres, and 120,700 of those acres are lands that people have built cities, roads or cultivate farms on. Almost 2,000 pumping wells supply the districts fields, houses and businesses with a clean reliable source of water. The water district has about 150 miles of pipelines and operates 10 dams and reservoirs, three treatment plants, many groundwater recharge basins, three pump stations and an advanced water purification plant. The district's three water treatment plants can produce as much as 210,000,000 US gallons (800,000 m3) of drinking water a day.
The San Diego Formation is a geologic formation in southwestern San Diego County in southern California, and northwestern Baja California (México).
The Coyote Mountains are a small mountain range in San Diego and Imperial Counties in southern California. The Coyotes form a narrow ESE trending 2 mi (3.2 km) wide range with a length of about 12 mi (19 km). The southeast end turns and forms a 2 mi (3.2 km) north trending "hook". The highest point is Carrizo Mountain on the northeast end with an elevation of 2,408 feet (734 m). Mine Peak at the northwest end of the range has an elevation of 1,850 ft (560 m). Coyote Wash along I-8 along the southeast margin of the range is 100 to 300 feet in elevation. Plaster City lies in the Yuha Desert about 5.5 mi (8.9 km) east of the east end of the range.
Snake Valley is a north-south trending valley that straddles the Nevada–Utah border in the central Great Basin. It is bound by the Snake Range and the Deep Creek Mountains to the west and the Confusion Range to the east. The valley is the gateway to Great Basin National Park and Lehman Caves, which are located in the western part of the valley and on the southern Snake Range.
The Santa Clara valley aquifer is a groundwater aquifer located in the southern San Francisco Bay Area. The geology of the Santa Clara valley aquifer consists of a complex stratigraphy of permeable and impermeable units. Management of aquifer resources is associated with the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
Temecula Basin is a sedimentary basin, which, along with the Aguanga Basin, is part of the Elsinore Fault Zone, in southwestern Riverside County, California. The Temecula Basin is a basin of down faulted Mesozoic basement rock, overlain by late Cenozoic continental sediments.
The Alkali Lakes are a series of three large playas located in the Surprise Valley of northeastern California, United States. From north to south they are known as Upper, Middle and Lower Alkali Lake. Upper Alkali Lake is often known simply as Upper Lake, and Lower Alkali Lake as Lower Lake. Although mostly located in Modoc County, California, the eastern edges of Middle and Lower Lakes touch Washoe County, Nevada. The Warner Mountains are located to the west of the three lakes. The lake beds are typically flooded with shallow water in the winter but dry up during most summers.
The Northern Rocky Mountain Intermontane Basins aquifer system is composed largely of unconsolidated sand lying under western Montana, Idaho and a small part of Washington. These shallow aquifers are not connected as a whole, body of water, but narrow glacial deposits unified by a common geologic history.
The Central Valley in California subsides when groundwater is pumped faster than underground aquifers can be recharged. The Central Valley has been sinking (subsiding) at differing rates since the 1920s and is estimated to have sunk up to 28 feet. During drought years, the valley is prone to accelerated subsidence due to groundwater extraction. California periodically experiences droughts of varying lengths and severity.
The State of California enforces several methodologies through technical innovation and scientific approach to combat saltwater intrusion in areas vulnerable to saltwater intrusion. Seawater intrusion is either caused by groundwater extraction or increased in sea level. For every 1-foot of freshwater depression (0.30 m), sea-salty waters rises 40 feet (12 m) as the cone of depression forms. Salinization of groundwater is one of the main water pollution ever produced by mankind or from natural processes. It degrades water quality to the point it passes acceptable drink water and irrigation standards.
The 1968 Borrego Mountain earthquake occurred on April 8, at 18:28 PST, near the unincorporated community of Ocotillo Wells in San Diego County. The moment magnitude (Mw ) 6.6 strike-slip earthquake struck with a focal depth of 11.1 km (6.9 mi). Damage was relatively moderate, and the mainshock was assigned a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) of VII. Shaking was felt in Nevada, and Arizona. It was the largest earthquake to strike California since 1952, and its display of afterslip became the subject of scientific interest.
